Gestures
by CaptainOzone
Summary: A collection of drabbles and oneshots celebrating the characters, plots, and beauty of the best animated movie/universe out there. #1) The words stuck to him like a shadow; #2) A stone front can't withstand all blows; #3) In retrospect, Stoick should have known; #4) Missing scene from HTTYD2; Valka-Hiccup bonding; #5) Maybe someday...
1. The Words

**Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD.**

**Author's Note: **I can't express in words my love for the How to Train Your Dragon universe, and lately, I've begun to write drabbles whenever I felt inspired. This collection is my dumping ground for said drabbles and short oneshots. Updates will be as random as they can be. Please enjoy!

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**Category**: Gen (Canon)  
**Characters/Pairings**: Hiccup, Toothless (mentioned)  
**Ratings/Warnings**: K; set pre-/during HTTYD  
**Word Count**: 265  
**Prompt**: "Curiosity"

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**The Words**

Hiccup can't remember when it started. He only remembers that the words seemed to have stuck to him his whole life.

He remembers hearing them whenever he ran outside to go exploring and whenever he tinkered with bits of metal. They accompanied him whenever he got caught somewhere he probably shouldn't have been or whenever someone risked a peek at his sketchbook. The words were always waiting for him whenever he came home late or whenever he hurt himself and had to be lead to Gothi or his father. When he began as Gobber's apprentice, in particular, he suddenly had full access to a forge, a personal workroom, and all the raw materials his heart desired, and the words practically merged with his shadow. There wasn't a day that he didn't hear them.

Muttered or hollered, they became _his_ words, but despite their presence in his life, he never once heeded them. No, the words always rolled right over him. In all honesty, by the time his words were uttered, something else had entirely occupied his mind: a "what-can-I-do-to-improve-this?", a "how-can-I-do-that-again?", a "will-this-or-that-work-better?", or a "when-can-I-test-this?"

Then there were the "why"s_._ Those were most incessant of them all.

_One day, you're going to get yourself killed, Hiccup_, they all had said.

As he stares into the blazing green eyes of the dragon, who is nosing around for more fish, Hiccup wonders, for the first time in his life, if perhaps they are right, but in a blink of an eye, he decides it doesn't matter.

The words never could curb his desire to know more.


	2. Stone Front

**Category:** Gen (Canon)  
**Characters/Pairings:** Hiccup, Stoick  
**Ratings/Warnings:** K+; set during HTTYD  
**Word Count:**: 394  
**Prompt:** "Heartbreak"

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**Stone Front**

Hiccup had long since learned not to argue with his father. He'd long since learned to keep any opinions to himself and to put up a front as solid as stone. Stoick neither listened nor understood anyway, so why should he waste his breath? It's not like anything would come of it. Might as well prepare for the inevitable, right?

Not this time. This time he was going to fight for what was right, and gods as his witness, he was going to make his father listen.

He couldn't lose Toothless. Not like this.

He slipped up. He hadn't meant to, but he did, and as a dawning realization and ferocious gleam lit his father's eyes, Hiccup stuttered, "Oh, no, no, no, Dad, no." His father didn't pay him any mind, and he rambled, "It's not what you think. You don't know what you're up against. It's like nothing you've ever seen!"

Without a word, Stoick brushed him aside, and Hiccup found himself arguing to his vast back. "No, Dad, please. I promise you can't win this one!"

Frustration built within him as his dad continued to deny his existence, and he repeated, "Dad, no." Stoick still stalked away, and he had never felt so small as he did then. Images of the Queen's massive head rearing, snapping…each tooth longer than his _body_…

Hiccup couldn't let his dad face this monster. He couldn't. He wouldn't survive this. None of them would, and fear scrabbled through his belly. His voice tore when he started after his dad, shouting, "For once in your life, would you please just _listen to me_?"

He hadn't even realized he tried to grab Stoick's forearm until he was shoved. Hiccup, now sprawled on the floor, was stunned into silence.

Only then did his father turn around, his tone full of controlled fury. "You've thrown in your lot with them. You're not a Viking."

Hiccup's chest heaved as he stared in disbelief at the towering figure, the lump in his throat growing.

"You're not my son."

Hiccup's stone front, always reinforced by a generous layer of sarcasm, had withstood so many disappointments. It had protected him from the careless, hurtful comments of his father, his tribe members, and his peers time and time again, but even it, as weathered as it was, could not take this blow.

And his world shattered.


	3. In Retrospect

**Category**: Gen (Canon)  
**Characters/Pairings**: Stoick, Hiccup  
**Rating/Warnings**: K+; set post-HTTYD / pre-Riders of Berk (TV series)  
**Word Count**: 361  
**Prompt**: "Denial"

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**In Retrospect**

In retrospect, Stoick should have known. He should have seen the way Gobber watched like a hawk, the way Mulch was there whenever Gobber wasn't. They weren't the only ones, but Stoick was just as blind to that as he had been to everything else.

His son would have tried to assure him that, no, that wasn't it. Or maybe he _would_ have said as much…but in such a roundabout, sarcastic way it would have gone right over Stoick's head.

One could never really tell with Hiccup sometimes.

Not being able to tell was the source of all his problems. Always had been. He should have known he wouldn't change overnight, even though he promised he would. For Hiccup, he promised, and Odin's beard, he'd keep that promise if it were the last thing he did.

But he'd just been so _happy_ to see his son up and about after the battle with the Red Death. After the period of time during which the boy had lain unmoving and unresponsive, of course Stoick had wanted nothing more than to celebrate Hiccup's courage and his life and his success, and he had washed away every last pinch of helplessness and terror he'd felt while his lad was comatose with mead and merriment and boisterous laughter and booming words.

There had been no greater feeling than hearing his son, who was still slightly overwhelmed by the changes he'd inspired on Berk, laugh with him. Stoick hadn't been able to remember the last time he'd seen Hiccup so happy, and seeing Hiccup happy had made him happy, too.

Yet still, Stoick should have listened. He should have watched. If he had, he would have remembered, as the other amputees did.

He would have remembered that, in most cases, there was an initial realization. Then there was _the_ realization.

It was exactly thirteen days after Hiccup woke up that Stoick found his son sitting alone by the hearth, his prosthetic thrown against the wall. There was a blank look in his eyes as he stared at the empty space below his knee.

"It really is gone," Hiccup stated in a dead voice. "Isn't it?"


	4. Wounds

**Category**: Gen (Canon)  
**Characters/Pairings**: Hiccup, Valka  
**Ratings/Warnings**: K; missing scene from HTTYD2 (set before the "For the Dancing and Dreaming" scene; very minor spoilers)  
**Word Count**: 394  
**Prompt**: "Tenderness"

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**Wounds**

He had laughed it off as though it meant nothing. It was an old wound, a familiar one. It did not cause a limp, nor did it in any way inhibit his riding. In fact, he ingeniously used his and his dragon's disability to his advantage when in flight, and it had undoubtedly created a bond between them she could never hope to achieve with Cloudjumper.

It no longer pained him. It no longer bothered him, though she did catch him tossing an exasperated glare at it every now and then when it didn't find purchase as well as his other foot did.

It was an old wound, and her son was well accustomed to it.

But to Valka, it was new, and every time her gaze fell on Hiccup's prosthetic, the wound within deepened.

Stoick had insisted that he go catch a few fish for them, and when he left, dragging Gobber by the ear, she found herself alone with her son, who waved absently at the retreating men as he lounged against Toothless, eyes closed, his fake foot resting beside him.

Silence pervaded the room for several moments before she found the courage. "Hiccup?" she asked hesitantly.

His bright eyes nearly took her breath away. An awkward, crooked smile twitched at his lips, and he heaved himself upright. "Yeah?"

Valka licked her lips and approached. He shuffled over a little, silently offering her a place beside him, and her heart fluttered at the open invitation. Without breaking eye contact, she sat and folded her legs under her. He was beautiful, so beautiful, and for the second time that day, she could not help but caress his cheek and gently run her fingers through his russet hair.

"I—" she croaked, choking on the correct words. She refused to shed tears, but when she cast her eyes downward, toward her son's stump, she couldn't swallow over the lump in her throat this time. Her hand dropped. "Did it hurt?" the mother eventually whispered.

"I…don't remember it too well, to be honest," he admitted, patting Toothless' side. "I was unconscious when Toothless caught me."

Several suspicions Valka had were realized in that one statement, but a thousand more questions leapt to her mind immediately. "Tell me?" she requested.

Stoick and Gobber returned to find the mother and son sobbing in each other's embrace.


	5. Someday, One Day

**Category**: Gen (Canon)  
**Characters/Pairings**: Hiccup  
**Ratings/Warnings**: K; tears may be shed  
**Word Count**: 350  
**Prompt**: "Nostalgia"  
**Author's Note**: Inspired by some beautiful fanart created by rocketssurgery on Tumblr. (rocketssurgery [d0t] tumblr [d0t] com/post/93278175613)

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**Someday, One Day...**

The climb was becoming difficult.

He'd never admit it, of course. He was a Viking, and Vikings—well, they had their stubbornness issues.

His old leg could throb all it wanted: he wasn't about to stop. He'd hiked that cliff for almost longer than he could remember—every day, he hiked, rain or shine—and if there was one thing he could admit, it was that he'd probably drag himself out of his deathbed if it meant he could make that climb just one more time.

_Someday,_ he would remind himself, _I might not have to climb into the sky alone._

Astrid often wondered why he didn't go to his other place—_their_ place—but he'd only shake his head. It was _their place_ for a reason.

_One day…I might just return to our cove. _

There was a worn trail leading up to the tallest precipice on Berk, and he would walk it diligently, ignoring all his aches and pains. Upon reaching the top, he'd look out over the world and see no boundary between sea and sky. He'd see the sea stacks, crooked and tall, spearing the clouds. Sometimes, he'd see sea birds diving for fish, and he'd smile wistfully.

Limitless. Exhilarating.

_Someday..._

He'd close his eyes and spread his arms, toes curled over the very edge. The wind would kiss his face, brine would coat his lips, and his hair would whip around him. Sometimes, he'd whoop and laugh and cry, and if he swayed with the music of the sea and sky just right, he'd no longer feel the land beneath his feet.

He'd _fly_.

The magic never left when he finally opened his eyes, and the ever-present burn in his heart would ease, if only until the next day.

_One day…_

Eventually, Hiccup would turn his back to the sky and sea, and without fail, he'd look at his mismatched feet, remember the other half of the pair, and murmur, "I miss you, bud."

There were dragons when he was a boy, you see, and someday, one day, he'd fly with his best friend again. (1)

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(1) Adapted from the quote "There were dragons when I was a boy." (_How to Train Your Dragon_ by Cressida Crowell)


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